


buddy

by audrenes



Series: a happy life for me [1]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Far Future, Growing Old Together, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21988444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audrenes/pseuds/audrenes
Summary: Talk to me, buddyStay with me, buddyDon't ever let me start feeling lonelySet after about 40 years after the events of the movie where Galo and Lio are old and they're very loved by their friends and family.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Series: a happy life for me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586515
Comments: 9
Kudos: 51





	buddy

**Author's Note:**

> I was in a Mood last night AND I've been in a Parks and Rec haze.
> 
> Title is from Willie Nelson's [ Buddy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDfLETGv28g). Lyrics in the description are from it, too.

"What's this?" Galo asks at the post card that was slid in front of him and Lio.

Lio rolls his eyes and picks it up, flipping it over to see a picture of a beach and a house in the background, and flipped it back. "What _is_ this, Arie?"

"I'm glad you asked, dad!" Arie took out a remote from his breast pocket, beckoning a small device to float up from behind the couch Galo and Lio were sitting on, and settled over them where it displayed a video from the same position as the photo. "Thalia and I chipped in and we got you a beach house!"

At this point, Thalia had set off a party popper and blew the horn she had hidden in her pocket. 

"It's a timeshare, though," Thalia still had the party horn in her mouth, blowing soft honks as she spoke. "Also, my idea."

"No, it was _mine_ \--" Arie insisted, but paused, especially when Lio rose a brow at them. "Doesn't matter. _Totally does_ , but not right now. Anyway."

Arie clicked a button and several small clips flew through the screen as relaxing music played. "You and pops deserve a break. A real break. Like, a real-real break."

"Aunt Aina has already agreed to cover for pops for any _captinial_ duties," Thalia explains, party horn out of her mouth. "And Milo told me that Uncle Meis and Uncle Gueira have the shop covered... in exchange for Milo filling in for you, dad."

"What about election season?" Lio asks, as he faced Thalia. "Don't you need someone to watch the kids if Milo is going to be filling in for me?"

"Ignis agreed to help watch over them! Uncle Varys, Remi, and Aunt Lucia too!"

"We got stacks on stacks of contingencies," Arie states as he clicks the button again, showing a flow chart of their emergency contact list.

Galo lets out a whistle. "Did you two work on this together?"

"I did the visuals, Thalia did the research, we both paid for the house's rent," Arie explained, but shook his head once he caught himself going down a rabbit hole. "Anyway. We all got this, so you don't even have to worry about it anything!"

"Aw, I'm just glad you two are hanging out and making presentations like you did when you were kids! C'mere!" Galo beams as he reaches over the table for a hug. Thalia and Arie's faces immediately scrunch up in light embarrassment, but they relent, allowing themselves to be caught in their father's bear hug. They hear a crack and immediately pull away. "Haha, ow!"

Lio shakes his head as he pats his husband's back.

"Thank you, you two, you didn't need to--" Before Lio can finish his sentence, the phone rings and when they see the caller ID on the screen pop up, Lio answers the call.

It's Ignis. 

_"Good. You're all in the same place,"_ Ignis lets out a strong cough before he continues. _"Galo, Lio, listen to your children."_

 _"Yeah! We did soooo much planning for this!"_ A voice-- definitely Lucia-- calls out, off screen, followed by several hushes.

Through the hushes, Gueira's voice cuts through. _"Hey, she's right and she should say it!"_

There's someone talking to Ignis off screen before he sighs, and allows the person to move the camera. When it moves, it's Aina, with everyone else-- Meis, Gueira, Lucia, Varys, Remi-- and the rest of their families, in the background.

_"We have all agreed to make you guys take a break whether you like it or not, so you might as well just do it, okay? We're all in the station once you guys are done there."_

And before either of them can protest, Aina hangs up the call.

"So?" Thalia asks as she and her brother look at their parents hopefully.

"Alright, alright, we'll go," At those words, Thalia and Arie give each other a high five before they rose to get their keys so they could meet up with everyone else at the Burning Rescue station..

"The beach, huh?" Galo presses a kiss against Lio's forehead. "It's been a while!"

A week later, Galo was gently pulling on Lio's sleeves, urging him to walk on the shore with him.

Warm sand stuck to their feet, sinking as they took a step forward. Galo had scrunched up his sweats and took a few steps into the water, before immediately running back onto the dry sand. "Cold, cold, cold!!!!"

Lio shook his head fondly at his husband's antics, having no idea how Galo maintained the energy he's had for forty years. 

"Hey, you took your meds, right?"

"Yup! When we had lunch on the way over here," Galo nodded. "Ahhh man, we're so _old!_ Our own kids are starting to baby us."

"I'm surprised that they're doing it now," Lio sighs. "But I am glad that they were able to get along long enough to put the presentation together. Or even put it together at all."

"Yeah," Galo nods as he wraps his arm around Lio's waist. "Thalia's been super busy with reelection and the kids, and Arie barely comes home because he's always filming for something."

"Mmm," Lio hums as he shivers, pressing up against Galo for warmth. While he's had more than enough time to adjust to the loss of the Promare, he still doesn't have his husband's natural high body temperature.

They walk further along the shore until they start to turn back, stopping on the cooling sand in the area in front of the beach house. Before they take a seat, they turn back to look at the city behind them.

"You wanna order pizza?" Galo suggests. "Arie said it's just close enough to the one back home."

"Arie said that?" Lio asks, a bit surprised. Arie was a bit of a pizza connoisseur among them. While Galo definitely had preferences, Arie took it to an eleven and had standards high above either his parents or his sister. "It _must_ be good."

"Right?" Galo agrees as he helps pull Lio up.

When they have dinner that night, they lounge in the couch as a rerun of a show before the first Great World Blaze plays in the background. They both have watched this show multiple times and it strikes a match in him as a song plays within it.

"Galo," Lio says.

"You thinking what I'm thinking, too, firebug?"

"That this house is way too big and empty and we should bring more people here next time?"

"Yeah," Galo smiles. "Everyone in the same place at the same time again."

As the credits play, Galo speaks up again.

"We did a pretty good job, right?"

They look past the TV, looking at the city skyline, a new establishment far from Promepolis, and see everything they had achieved from the past few decades. Protecting the world as they set it on fire, rebuilding it and their lives afterward, finding a new normal after reconstruction had started to plateau, raising their kids, and raising them well enough that they'd be giving them another place to call home. 

Galo sees the life that he always wanted to have while Lio sees everything couldn't even imagine having when he was on the run.

Lio runs his thumb, roughened after decades spent in the auto repair shop he established with Meis and Gueira, over Galo's hand and over the ring he had Gueira make for them. Lio thinks back to the months he spent pining over Galo and remembers how Galo had done the same for him. He thinks about the presentation Galo gave him on the rooftop of Burning Rescue HQ even though he thought they had already been dating. And he thinks about how Galo gave him a similar presentation when he took him out to the lake to propose, even though Lio had the same plans that day.

Galo smiles as he presses a kiss on his husband's graying hair, always thankful that he was able to breathe life back into him, not allowing him to turn into ash. Galo still remembers thinking that Lio's destiny was never to die that day, and he keeps thinking that now as they're scrunched up on the couch in a house their children bought for them, in a world that they rebuilt together.

A lot has changed, but a lot has also stayed the same.

Lio leans into the crook of Galo's neck and gently pats his hand.

"Yes, I suppose we did."

**Author's Note:**

> For context:
> 
> Thalia is Galo and Lio's eldest daughter and is a politician, working her way up to be the next governor. She is also married to Milo, Meis and Gueira's son. They have a daughter and a son, Iris and Demitri.
> 
> Arie is five years younger than Thalia and is an actor.
> 
> They both have Galo and Lio's showmanship skills in them one way or another.
> 
> Also, Gueira makes jewelry on his spare time and Lio had him make his and Galo's rings.
> 
> Not everyone in their group ended up having kids and/or marrying. 
> 
> It has been a hot minute since I've put fanfiction up online, haha. Like, the last time I remember writing something AND putting it online was like, in 2014 or something. I'm @https_aj on both [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/https_aj/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/https_aj). (Expect a whole lot of Promare stuff on Twitter, especially.)


End file.
